Slowing down is so important for both body and mind ❤

Taking a moment to press pause and give yourself what you need in this busy time is imperative.

We all need our own ways to empty our minds and reset. Being mindful of what those coping mechanisms are can be half the battle.

Take some time to consider – what’s on your list? What are your go-to practices when your brain gets busy? Can you make a ‘winter wellbeing’ menu to help you through the next couple of months?

Here are some ideas to help you create a resource kit for Christmas, the winter season, and all year round:

1.  Press pause and give yourself a moment.
2. Take some deep breaths – ideally inhaling through your nose to the mental count of 4 and exhaling through your mouth to the mental count of 7.  Deep breaths send signals to our minds that we are safe.
3. Practice a mini meditation or mindfulness for 5 minutes – Bringing your attention back to yourself in the moment, gives your mind a break from its usual busyness and can be such a helpful way of breaking away from the stresses and strains of daily life.
4. Think of positive anchors – times when you have felt the way you want to feel now.  Take yourself back to that moment and re-create the feeling.  Top tip: it’s helpful if the feeling you’re looking to create is the opposite to the feeling you’re wanting to change, i.e. calm instead of anxiety.
5. Journal / write down your thoughts – it’s a great way to release your thoughts onto paper, but it can also reveal what’s really going on for you in your subconscious and make sense of things.
6. Reach out to someone and let them help you – a friend, family member, partner, whoever that person is for you.
7. Interrupt negative or overwhelming thought patterns – simply by saying to yourself ‘cancel, cancel, cancel, delete’. Sometimes we just need to break the pattern and re-set rather than letting it spiral.
8. Have a walk or sit out in nature – daily contact with nature is linked to better health, reduced levels of stress and improved concentration.
9. Protect your boundaries – Christmas can be a busy time with many demands; know when enough is enough. Imagine yourself saying yes to something then ask yourself how you feel afterwards. If you’ve sacrificed, devalued, or depleted yourself, you know the answer.
10. Help someone less fortunate than you – it’s a wonderful feeling to give or simply help someone with the gifts you have as a person. Create that warm hearted feeling inside.
11. Practice gratitude – list on paper or in your mind in the moment, the things you’re grateful for. We can always find something if we press pause and allow ourselves a moment. It’s a wonderful way to shift the focus from negative to positive.
12. Remind yourself, it’s energy it’ll pass – feelings are a vibration of energy designed to pass through our bodies. Problems can occur when we resist, repress and stop the feelings from passing through. This is often a subconscious process; if you can raise awareness in your conscious, remind yourself (it’s energy it’ll pass), and allow, the feelings may be released much more easily.

Lets keep you grounded

All of these resources are designed to help ground you in the present moment. Highlighting positive moments and staying present is imperative for good mental health. Practicing techniques to keep us present gives us an opportunity to stop living outside ourselves and allows us to detach from past pain & future fear.

‘Nothing is more valuable than the present moment’ – Vex King.

Enjoy this festive period, have a Merry Christmas, and most of all be gentle with yourself.

Christmas gift offer

Emma is offering 20% off all appointments taking place in December 2021.